Morning Glory
by AstaLaila
Summary: Sometimes it is in the simplest ways that you make the greatest changes. Morgan and Garcia find out this in the bedroom. M/G
1. Chapter 1

Penelope was sitting quietly in the courtyard of the apartment building. When she had first moved in several years ago she had covertly planted climbing morning glory vines in a corner. Now they spread out along the stone walls and trailed over the garden edges. One of the tendrils was beginning to cling to the back of the bench she sat on.

* * *

Derek climbed out of his truck, walking towards the arched entrance. He hummed quietly to himself as he caught sight of her.

He leant against the wall, hiding himself partially.

She was sitting on the bench she liked in the corner. He legs were pulled up and crossed, her skirt carefully arranged for modesty. One hand pushed a curl out of her face as she twirled a flower between her free fingers.

Derek stepped forwards as quietly as he could, making his way towards her.

"Hi." Her mouth curved into a grin as her eyes stayed focused on the flower.

"Hey baby girl." He settled down on the free space on the bench. It was quiet. He reached out and touched the edge of the flower gently. Penelope looked up.

"Do you think that we could last?"

"I think we've made it this far. And that's a good sign."

"You don't ever….think about the future?"

"Is everything okay beautiful?" Morgan reached his hand to the plane of her cheek.

"If I ask you something, do you promise me you'll tell the truth?" Her eyes were earnest when she looked up at him. All his mind could do was flash through transgressions he'd made, wondering which he would have to face up to with her eyes on him.

"Yeah, of course." Derek frowned, focusing in on her, on her nervous twirling of the flower, her open body, turned towards him.

"I do. Think about the future. And…" She stopped. "I planted these flowers. When I first moved in here. They've been growing here for….four years I guess. Maybe five."

"I like them." Derek reached and grasped her fingers in his. He had no idea what was going to come at him from this. He hated being unprepared. He always went in with an idea of what he was already looking for.

"What would you say if I asked you to marry me Derek?"

Oh.

"I-" He breathed steadily. "I'd ask you if you were being serious. And….I'd ask you if you'd really thought about it."

He was unprepared for her calm countenance.

"Do you think I'd ask without having thought about it."

"No. I just….am I really the kind of man you want to be tied to for years?" He heard a faint crack in his own voice and winced. His eyes watched her breathe for a moment, seeing the expansion and deflation.

"Yes."

His eyes caught hers.

"Are you serious?"

"Very, Derek." She pressed.

"You've…thought about it."

"I have."

"And I'm…" A faint nod, a tip of her head. "Yes."

"Yes?"

"I never….Wow." Penelope stroked her thumb over his knuckles. Derek shifted his weight down the bench, laying along his back. His head rested in her lap. Penelope let her fingers gently stroke along his temple. "We're going to get married."

"Mmmh." Penelope hummed softly.

They sat on the bench as the shadows shifted in diagonals across the courtyard.

"I love you Pen." Derek murmured, his words sleepy in the warm sunlight. He drew her hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss to her palm. Her hand pulled back up, trailing along the side of his face lovingly.

"I love you too."


	2. Chapter 2

No own. Applies to all my things.

* * *

Penelope felt the depression on the bed behind her.

"Hey kitten."

"Kitten?" Morgan retorted, putting on a hurt tone to his voice.

"Tiger?" He laid down on his stomach as well, perpendicular to her towards the end of the bed.

"Mmmmm. Better." He glanced over her shoulder. The only light in the room was generated from the screen of the computer. "What are you working on?"

The tap of the keys was soothingly rhythmic.

"Just writing."

"Writing what?"

"To my brother."

"Dan?"

"Yes. He's the only one that I really talk to."

"What are you telling him about?"

"Things. Saying that I got the pictures of Ty that he sent."

"Mmmhmmm." Derek hummed lowly. Her bare legs were splayed out behind her, kicking absently along to the tapping.

"And….Work. Nothing classified or anything."

Derek made a non-committal noise in the back of his throat. His ring finger hovered over the soft skin behind her knee, brushing against it with a twitch of his hand.

"The usual. Friends and such. JJ and Reid and Emily and all that. He likes to know that I'm doing okay here." There was a smile in her voice that covered the implications of overprotectiveness.

"Anything about me in there?" Derek murmured. The pad of his finger ran softly along the line of her leg to the knee, the back of his hand gently leading back down.

"Nothing much." Penelope couldn't stop the curve of her mouth. The tickling touch on her leg made her cringe at its almost unbearable sweetness.

"Should I be worried?" His voice was low and reverberated in his chest.

"No, it's just words couldn't do you justice."

His hand slowed, his thumb running along her skin before pausing.

"I guess I'll just have to meet him someday then."

Penelope closed her laptop with a faint click, not speaking. She pushed it to the head of the bed, letting it slide under one of the pillows where it often stayed overnight.

"Come here." She turned onto her hip. Derek moved, turning and lying alongside her.

Penelope moved into him, resting her forehead against his collarbone. One arm folded to support his head, and the other slid his hand to the space between her shoulder blades.

She shifted, finding the most comfortable angle against him. She rested her chin against his chest, warm and softly spicy. She pressed soft kisses against the fabric of his t-shirt. His fingers flexed pressure along her spine in response. With the soft hum from his throat, she rested against him, focusing on the cyclical path his finger ran over her skin.


	3. Chapter 3

"Derek sweetheart?" Penelope pushed the door shut behind her with her foot and managed to slid her way into the kitchen with both arms full of grocery. An orange fell out of the top of one bag and rolled off the counter.

"Sugar? Are you in?" The groceries could wait for the refrigerator for a few minutes until she found him. The living room was quiet except for the click of Clooney's nails on the floor as he chased squirrels in his dreams. The bathroom was dark. The bedroom had the tension that betrayed his presence in it.

"Derek?" Her hand on the light switch was cautious.

He was there. He was sitting against the wall, drawn up legs and his forehead against his thumbs. In the corner where he instinctively felt more protected. He was there. And she was by his side. Softly down onto her knees.

She touched him and she could tell that he was receptive, and unwilling. He stayed tense and didn't force relaxation to make it seem like everything was fine. It wasn't fine. He knew that she could tell. Tell in the paleness of his tight knuckles. The tension of the tendons and ligaments on the inside of his wrist. The fact that his feet were bare against the floor. He always wore socks in the house.

"My mom has cancer." He said with unsettling clearness.

"Oh, babe." Her soft tones and the shock in her face was exactly what he needed. He needed disbelief and gentleness. He needed her.

And she was there. For him. Until the ice cream melted and pooled warm on the kitchen tile. She was here.


	4. Chapter 4

"Why her Der?"

He knew that question. Heard it, seen it, felt it in the glance of other people. And while he supposed objectively he could see it as a possibility in the mind of others... But it somehow couldn't make sense in his head.

He couldn't answer the why as though he had to explain himself. It wasn't a logical argument. She was a basis. A 'why is the sky blue?" question. It was exactly what it was and nothing more, certainly nothing less.

"Because she was always there Des. Always. I told her to never stop talking to me. And she never has."

"I don't mean to….are you going to be able to give up the attention?" She nudged his shoulder, slipping down a step on the porch front to sit right beside him.

"Just because I go off the market doesn't mean the ladies will be less admiring." He said cockily to her, but then he shook his head, a strange smile she hadn't seen before across his mouth.

"Des. If I can keep her attention….." He nodded slowly down at his hands. And he turned to her.

"I think she loves me." Desiree felt her stomach drop with painful happiness.

"Baby brother." She wrapped her arm around him like he was still her little brother, not just younger. "I'm happy for you."

"It's weird." He mumbled.

"Growing up?" She teased. It felt so much like the time he had incredibly grudgingly asked her and Sarah what he should wear to his first dance. They had teased him mercilessly, and sent him off looking disgustingly handsome for a sixth grader. He was still disgustingly handsome.

"Trusting someone." This was a surprise. Derek. Derek didn't trust. That had been ruined in him a long time ago. It showed in the protectiveness of his two sisters and his mother, in his reckless bravery. And now he did.


End file.
